The idea of building something from the ground up at a young medical school was attractive to Dr. Winn Chatham, and building is what he’s been doing ever since he landed in Las Vegas. With rock solid credentials — undergrad at Duke, medical school at Vanderbilt, residency at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill — before spending the bulk of his career at the University of Alabama Birmingham (UAB) Heersink School of Medicine. He arrived at the Kirk Kerkorian School of Medicine at UNLV in June 2023, tasked with building a rheumatology clinical and training program.

At UAB, Chatham directed the lupus clinic, conducting multiple clinical trials on evolving lupus treatments. “I thought when relocating to Las Vegas and UNLV that I would just be wearing a general rheumatologist hat,” Chatham says. But, he would soon learn just how much he was needed here.

Nevada has a severe shortage of rheumatologists. So, he and Dr. Mitchell Foreman, the former dean of Touro University Nevada and UNLV Health’s only other rheumatologist, went to work on a backlog of patients. Then, with financial help from a donor, the veteran rheumatologists began laying the foundation for Nevada’s first-ever rheumatology fellowship, an advanced training program that would recruit and train two new rheumatologists per year. Both doctors were extremely pleased when the fellowship was approved by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) on the initial review. The first two fellows were recruited and began work in the summer of 2024. This was a significant achievement, since developing new fellowships and residencies is a top priority for the school and one of the best ways to attract physicians to Southern Nevada.

According to the latest Association of American Medical College (AAMC) Physician Workforce report, there are just 36 practicing rheumatologists in Nevada, a paltry number considering that by some estimates, approximately 13,000 Nevadans are living with lupus, an autoimmune disease, causing extreme fatigue, disfiguring rashes, cardiovascular issues, and significant joint pain. Rheumatologists treat lupus patients, but also those suffering from osteoarthritis, gout, and a myriad of other rheumatic and autoimmune conditions. Unfortunately in Nevada, getting an appointment with a rheumatologist can take six months or more.

That’s partly why Chatham’s arrival in Southern Nevada has been so impactful. But it gets better. Chatham is now conducting the only clinical research on lupus therapies in Southern Nevada promoted and supported by the Lupus Clinical Investigators Network (LuCIN). This distinction positions the Kirk Kerkorian School of Medicine at UNLV among a group of 57 top academic research medical centers in North America, with LuCIN providing funds for the infrastructure to conduct multiple clinical trials and linking member sites to studies of new cutting-edge therapies.

“It is very exciting to have Dr. Chatham and the Kirk Kerkorian School of Medicine at UNLV join LuCIN,” says Stacie Bell, chief clinical research officer for Lupus Therapeutics. “Dr. Chatham brings extensive expertise and passion to the network and ensures that UNLV offers outstanding lupus care and clinical trials to the entire region.”

As of this writing, Chatham is actively overseeing two clinical trials, looking at a novel monoclonal antibody called Ianalumab, a drug that has shown promise treating patients with lupus and Sjogren’s syndrome. Monoclonal antibodies are proteins made in a laboratory, designed to bind to specific targets in the body. Chatham and his team, mostly resident physicians he’s training, are currently seeking patients with moderate to severe lupus and lupus nephritis. They are currently contracting for and awaiting site activation to also begin late phase clinical trials using other antibody-based therapies to treat patients suffering with Sjogren’s syndrome as well as patients with early systemic sclerosis (Scleroderma).

Since moving to Southern Nevada, Chatham has discovered a larger than anticipated population in need of attention.

“The patient population here is interesting,” Chatham says. “They tend to have not just one autoimmune disease, but often have several in combination … so there are some studies that need to be done to wrap our heads around why that may be.”

“We know that patients with Native American ancestry, which probably comprise the majority of the Hispanic population in the Southwest, are at increased risk for significant autoimmune disease,” says Chatham. “And patients with Asian/Pacific Islander ancestry, like those with African ancestry, are at greater risk for more severe autoimmune disease.” According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 34 percent of the population in Las Vegas is Hispanic and 13 percent identify as Asian/Pacific Islanders. “When you tally up the percentages of residents in the Las Vegas area who have African, Native American, Asian, and Pacific Islander ancestry, all linked to increased risk and severity of autoimmune diseases such as lupus, that’s well over half of the population here.”

So, you can see how rheumatologists, and specifically those who conduct research into novel lupus therapies, are in such great demand.

“A number of lupus trials had been conducted in the Las Vegas area,” Chatham says. “But the doctor who oversaw them has retired, so the opportunity for patients to access these newer cutting-edge therapies was fading.”

Chatham and his team are determined to forge ahead with their research, bolstered by the promise of more rheumatologists practicing in Southern Nevada thanks to the new fellowship program.

“There’s no question that because of the sheer number of patients we see, we have our work cut out for us – simply caring for the community,” Chatham says. “But I see real promise and opportunity with the new fellowship, and with a growing reputation for clinical research, it should attract additional talent in rheumatology – it’s something our patients here deserve.”